Kirbyschool Wiki
Welcome to the Kirby School Wiki For the students at Kirby School, a site explaining The Writing Process and its application across the disciplines. ''The Writing Process From conception to completion, writing moves back and forth through a series of stages. This is rarely a linear process, proceeding smoothly from starting to ending point. Instead, writing is often a messy, haphazard series of intuitions, guesses, mistakes, and insight that moves slowly toward a satisfying conclusion. It is rarely an act of inspiration. It is a skills-based activity that can be learned if practiced and repeated until the writer understands the common ways to create a range of writings. At Kirby we speak of The Writing Process, a recursive procedure wherein the writer moves from general goals to more focused ideas and expression. '''Step 1:' Understand It is difficult to begin a writing assignment without some sense of where you're going. Good writers allow themselves a time of general exploration without the pressure of producing a thesis or worrying about structure. In the prewriting stage, writers cast their net wide as they consider a range of ideas and ways to explore their topic. It is important to resist the temptation to hurry the process and squeeze out a focus before your brain has had a chance to look at a variety of possibilities. Science fiction writer Ray Bradbury called this the time to create a kind of literary mulch, gathering a range of disparate ideas and details and letting them ferment in his brain until something bubbled up. As with all stages of the writing process, ask yourself key questions to get your thinking started. * Topic: What's the general idea you're exploring? This is not the same as a thesis, which is a specific statement. * Goal: It's important to be clear about what you want to do. Again, your goal must be more focused than "I want to get a good grade" or "I just want to get this done." If your goal is that simple, it will be reflected in the quality of your paper. Instead, is there something you want to learn about? Is there an idea you don't understand and want to clarify? Is there a memory you'd like to explore? Is there something you'd like to prove? * Audience: Who is your target audience? Your response needs to be more than simply "My teacher." Who do you believe would be interested in your thinking? Who would be affected by it? Who do you want to convince, impress, or intimidate? * What Don't You Know?: This is a big one. Before you can begin researching your topic, you need to identify where you want to explore. Be honest and think deep and long: What does not make sense about your topic? What gaps are there in your understanding? What don't you believe? What have you suspected but never been able to prove? What happened to you that you've never fully understood? * What are the How's and Why's?: Go beyond simple data questions (who, what, when, where) and ask the questions that explore causes and reasons. These will yield more nuanced and sophisticated answers. * Where Will You Have to Go to Find Answers?: 'Depending on the questions you have, you will gather information from different sources. Sometimes you will only need a single source; other times, you may need a variety of sources. Depending on your audience, your goals, and your questions, you will explore some combination of the following: ** ''Yourself: Any writing involving personal experiences requires you to search your memories for anecdotes, conversations, locations, and descriptive details. ** Interview: Interview is the most direct way to learn about the experiences or thinking of others. It also enables you to get specific information about a topic you can't glean from printed sources. ** Observation: Observation is particularly good for sensorial detail or direct experience. The former is an effective way to flesh out the sensations of an event or moment; the latter is a compelling way to bring first-hand, first-person experience to a writing. ** Participation: Your direct participation can combine first-person experiences with "You are there" details. ** Recorded Sources: Recorded sources can range from primary documents to news outlets to interpretive research. They include print, websites, podcasts, DVD's, and other recorded materials. ''Step 2:' Research and Refine Researching Types: The kind of paper you will compose will be determined by the kinds of research you gather. * Tertiary: As you begin your research, don't make the mistake of starting with a narrow focus. Throw the doors wide open and consider the range of tangents. If you're researching''The Great Gatsby'', for example, get information on the Harlem Renaissance, on jazz music, the Charleston, flappers, radio, the stock market, Prohibition, and more. If you want to learn about physics, study the biographies of Einstein, Godel, and Schrodinger; research the role of scientists in 1930s Germany; learn about the creation of research universities during the Great Depression; read about The Manhattan Project. Narrowing your topic at this stage means you'll miss ideas and connections you don't have enough background on to notice. You'll narrow your topic later, after you've gathered enough information to understand both your topic and its context. For now, soak up information like a sponge, and let your mind wander with the possibilities. * Secondary: It's helpful to learn from those who have spent time investigating a topic in some depth. Secondary sources are commentaries or interpretations. They are analytic explorations of a topic. * Primary: As you narrow your focus, you'll want to consult sources and voices directly connected with your topic. If you're composing a paper on Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, you'll want to read the works of Werner Heisenberg and perhaps his colleagues. If you're doing an analysis of Madame Bovary, you could track down the comments of the book's author, Gustave Flaubert, as well as the book itself. Sources: Your selection of resources is critical during this phase. Although googling will get you some digital data, consider a few other strategies: * Databases: In addition to the School's account with JSTOR, you can access databases through the Santa Cruz Library system. The School is also compiling a list of helpful sites that you can access here. * Footnotes and Bibliographies: Good sites list their sources, so look for footnotes and bibliographies that provide additional resources. Wikipedia, for example, documents its claims and often features a bibliography at the bottom of its pages. * Media: Most magazines and newspapers now have websites, which means you can often get digital versions of print articles as well as more additional information and visuals from infographics to videos and podcasts. Remember that not all resources are created equal. The Internet is particularly prone to biased, uninformed allegations crafted by persons with undocumented opinions. So it's important to research cautiously and note the following: * Representative: Consider whether your sources are typical of the general discussion around your topic or come from a skewed perspective. If the latter, ask if there's a valid reason why the source goes against the norm. There might be, but it still needs to make its argument logically and with documentation. * Credible: How do you know your source is credible? Be careful of websites that provide no name for its writing. If there is an author given, does the site provide his/her background? If not, Google the author and see if there's any information on his/her work. If the source is an institution, scour the website to see who funds the institution or makes up its leadership. Again, Google them to see how others view their work. * Varied: No idea exists without a context, so no research should restrict itself to a narrow viewpoint. To make sense of your research, it is necessary to see it within a wide range of ideas. In particular, writing that advances an argument must research and refute opposing ideas. Don't use straw man tactics in a persuasive paper (a straw man is a metaphor for an opposing idea that is so weak it is easy to knock down). March into the opposition's camp and study their strongest arguments. As you gather your research, keep track of your findings so you can access it later. Though you may have your own techniques (in pre-Internet days, students were directed to keep information on 3x5 cards), below are a few ways you can compile your research: * Brainstorm: Old-fashioned pen and paper. Write down in whatever order you like the facts, anecdotes, descriptive details, or ideas you come up with. Let your brain flow openly as you jot down your findings. * Clustering: Clustering differs from a brainstorm in that you first write down an idea on a sheet of paper and then write down all the things you associate with it. You can make as many clusters around whatever ideas you have percolating in your mind. * Mindmap: Mindmapping is similar to clustering, but it's taken on a more defined meaning in the age of computer software. The Internet is littered with a range of mindmapping software, much of it free. If you work with Google Drive, Mindmeister software can be integrated into Google's program. Finding Patterns '' Here's where we up the ante. Information and details don't make a paper, nor do they magically assemble themselves into a structure. Organizing your research is a conscious choice about how your particulars relate to each other and how they unite to present a focused, clear presentation. Once you've finished your first round of research, avoid the temptation to start writing. Although it feels like more work to stop and organize your findings, your writing will be much easier if you first have a clear idea where you're going, and you'l save yourself a lot of time staring into a blank computer screen trying to figure out what to write next. * Complicate: Complicating your research means adding more facts, ideas, or data that will widen the focus. This is important because we often settle for the first or simplest idea without challenging our thinking. In this stage, look for additional info data that will force you to dig deeper for ways to connect them. * Categorize: To organize data, you need to find patterns in it. Consider the various ways you can categorize your information. Most likely, you will find a few categories that nevertheless don't account for all your research. This is normal. If you've done a lot of research (and you should), you'll come up with material that you'll not use. This isn't sloppy researching; on the contrary, it means you've created a context for your ideas, so your focus will be stronger and more credible. * Connect: Once you have your information gathered into a handful of categories, look for ideas or themes that connect them. This is important, because the ideas or themes you come up with are good candidates for the focus of your paper. Again, it is very likely you won't find an idea/theme that connects all your categories. As happens when you categorized your info, you'll very likely have some categories that don't fit around a central idea as well as others do. No problem. Just stick with the categories that work together best and dismiss the rest. * Contextualize: Every idea has two aspects: how it is structured internally, and how it fits within a larger structure. For instance, an atom has an internal structure composed of electrons and neutrons; it also operates with other atoms to create a molecule. Similarly, we might look at the Battle of Bunker Hill and its particulars to determine what happened on the date of the fighting; conversely, we can examine the Battle of Bunker Hill as one of a number of challenges the Massachusetts colony made against Great Britain. We call these two acts zooming in and zooming out: When we zoom in, we examine the item under discussion in and of itself; when we zoom out, we look at the item as it fits into a larger pattern. * Sequence: Sequence can refer to chronology or order. To understand the relation of one item to another, determine where in a timeline or process each item would fall. ''Focusing It's taken a lot of work to get to this stage, and a lot of the tough work has been done. But this is the time for fine tuning, coming up for air to see what final effort needs to be made before finalizing the work. Though the entire process of writing is recursive, at this point, more specifically, it is worth asking some of the questions you've asked before so as to bring a more specific focus to your writing. In particular, it is worth asking yourself the following questions: * What Are the Important Aspects/Angles/Ideas?:''This is an extension of the questions you asked in the last stage to determine your focus. * ''What More Specific Research Do You Need to Do?: Would your paper benefit from some additional data? Are there details about your personal anecdote that would create a better picture? Have you considered all the arguments that might occur to your reader? * What's the Focus?: The focus is the culminating part of your research, what all your research leads to. Without a focus, your writing is little more than a list of data memories or ideas. What distinguishes a list from a paper, or a diary from a personal essay, is the focus. ** Thesis: A thesis is an arguable, succinct statement that addresses such questions as, What's your point? What are you saying? What's the meaning of all this? What do you conclude? In most writing, the thesis is explicitly stated, usually in a sentence toward the beginning of a formal essay. However, skilled writers also work with implied thesis statements, wherein the thesis is suggested by the logic of the argument and accumulation of data. Needless to say, this is tricky and requires a sophisticated presentation of your material. Additionally, it is not unheard of to leave a thesis at the end of the essay, thereby leading the reading by the hand to the, seemingly, inevitable conclusion. Again, this takes a strong hold over the material and its presentation. ** Argument: Technically, any focus is a kind of persuasion as you are are trying to make your reader believe, think, feel, or act a designated way. But we distinguish between those goals and the specific approach of a persuasive paper wherein the writer argues for a change in thinking, minimally, or direct action. ** Theme: Like any focus, a theme unifies a writing around a central idea, but a theme is rarely stated and is more general than a thesis. Themes are often the unifying idea of a work of literature or a personal essay. ** Mood/Atmosphere: Some writing, such as fiction and personal essays, are less concerned with ideas than creating a mood or atmosphere. These are more suggestive than explicit, evoking an emotional or affective response in the reader. * What's the Tone?: Tone is the emotional attitude the writer takes toward the material. Consider your audience: what tone will engage them or make the material compelling or accessible? * What Don't You Know Now?:'''When you began this process, this question was meant to generate more general questions as a prompt to your first stage of research. But now that you've become more familiar with your topic, your questions can be more focused. Are there smaller, more particular aspects of your topic you still haven't pinned down? Are there missing details? Is there something that doesn't make sense? Is there a perspective that isn't represented in your research? ''Creating Structure'' A structure is most effective when it comes out of the material. It is a clear choice about the order and manner of the way you want your reader to engage with your material and ideas. Sometimes it is best that the reader know clearly and soon what your piece is about. Other times, it may serve you as the writer to withhold your thinking/ideas/themes until you've established some foundational work. You might want to present your material chronologically and in a clear order. Other times, it may serve your purposes to arrange your presentation from multiple perspectives or varying tones to achieve a particular effect. In this way, we understand that structure is to focus what a map is to a journey: its construction enables the viewer to begin at a particular spot and proceed clearly to a destination. Structure is the way we guide the reader from our intro through our development of a focus to a conclusion that sounds both logical and inevitable. * Sequence: Sequential structures are time-based, meaning they following a sequence of events. In a '''straight narrative, the paper follows an event or story from the opening action to the conclusion. More commonly, writers use a shifted narrative, jumbling the order of events, such as beginning a story at an emotional high point and then filling in the events that led up to it, or using a flashback to step back briefly in time. * Disposition: Idea-based structures are ordered around an idea or concept that acts like a golden thread to hold the piece together. More formal and analytic papers are organized around ideas that progress in importance. Essays that are more free form often employ an associational structure, as the writer follows one idea to another, tracing an idea as it evolves and shifts. Writings deal with physical space sometimes employ a spatial structure, moving from one item to another as each space is connected by proximity. Finally, inductive structures usually open with a particular item that symbolizes or suggests a larger idea the rest of the writing will explore. For instance, in an analytic essay, the writer might introduce an event, person, or quote that operates as a significant example of a larger idea. In a personal essay, for example, the writer might open with an anecdote that summarizes his/her life or views on a topic. In this way, the inductive structure combines a "zoom in" with a "zoom out," so that the item zoomed in on is shown to represent the item it is a small part of. Similarity/Difference: The point of a comparison/contrast essay is to examine something within a larger context. We do not understand something from one perspective as well as we do when adding additional perspectives. In a comparison structure, we use two or more examples to explore or define an idea. If we want to explore the concept of beauty in the Classical era, for example, we might the fifth century Greek statue Kritios Boy with the fourth century Venus de Knidos. Comparing the way they differ in their beauty (idealized depiction of masculine youth versus a more natural view of the female body) would demonstrate how Greek values shifted in just a few decades from beauty as rooted in perfection to beauty as something found in the everyday world. A similar structure employs a continuum, wherein we place several examples are arranged from one extreme to the other. For example, to use our example about beauty in Classical Greek times, we might introduce a third example, the third century sculpture titled Market Woman. There is nothing divine or perfect about this character; her body shows the wear of aging and earthly troubles, making her the opposite of Kritios Boy. So we might make a continuum about the depiction of beauty from perfection to realism, placing Kritios Boy at one extreme, the Market Woman at the other, and Venus de Knidos in the middle. Such a structure enables us to develop our thesis: As Greece rose and then declined, its vision of the universe shifted away from an ideal state to a world of decay and strife. * Context: Because your reader may need background or supplemental information to put your central idea into focus, you need to decide where in your presentation that information should come, providing a con text for your focus. This may mean providing a short history, or an explanatory passage, or analogous situations to make your central idea clearer. Structuring your work contextually involves deciding where that supplemental material must be placed. * Disposition: Disposition refers to the relation of one item to another. In terms of writing, it refers to the ordering of items around a specific concept. For instance, you might present your passages or units in order of importance, ending with the most emphatic or important idea. Similarly, if you were writing about a location, you would decide which aspects of the location would first pull your reader in and what aspects would be more effective coming toward the conclusion of your presentation. Or your paper might focus on creating a mood or developing a theme, in which case you would decide what indicator (symbol, quote, narrative, etc.) you would use to introduce your mood/theme and how additional indicators would be strewn throughout your paper to amplify and then complete the mood/theme. Step 3: ''Compose'' * Draft: Drafting occurs when you put your research into words. Here, the choices you have made from tone to structure to evidence all coalesce in the first of several attempts to communicate clearly what you want to convey. * Revision: The recursive nature of the writing process is most apparent as you revise. As you notice passages that sound awkward, or points that aren't stated clearly, or evidence that seems specious, you are seeking the most effective ways to clarify your thinking. Revisions can be all-at-once, or you can read through your work focusing on a single aspect, e.g., your evidence, your grammar, your diction, your structure, etc. * Workshop/Conference: What we mean to say is often much clearer in our minds than it is on paper, so getting feedback from others enables us to see the flaws in our work we might not notice. Photos and videos are a great way to add visuals to your wiki. Find videos about your topic by exploring Wikia's Video Library. 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